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IRAN HUMAN RIGHTS (MARCH 13, 2018): The 10th annual report on the death penalty in Iran by Iran Human Rights (IHR) and ECPM shows that in 2017 at least 517 people were executed in the Islamic Republic of Iran.
This number is comparable with the execution figures in 2016 and confirms the relative reduction in the use of the death penalty compared to the period between 2010 and 2015.
Nevertheless, with an average of more than one execution every day and more than one execution per one million inhabitants in 2017, Iran remained the country with the highest number of executions per capita. 2017 Annual Report at a Glance: At least 517 people were executed in 2017, an average of more than one execution per day111 executions (21%) were announced by official sources.Approximately 79% of all executions included in the 2017 report, i.e. 406 executions, were not announced by the authorities.At least 240 people (46% of all executions) were executed for murder charges - 98 more than in 2016.At le…

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court refused again Monday to decide whether the death penalty is unconstitutional.
The action came in a case from Arizona in which lawyers asked the court to strike down both the state's capital punishment system and the nation's.
The court's four liberal justices said Arizona's system, under which most defendants convicted of first-degree murder are eligible for the death penalty, may be unconstitutional. But they said the case was not ready for the high court's review.
The justices have in recent years sided with death row defendants for specific reasons, ranging from racial discrimination and intellectual disability to incompetent lawyers. But in their most important case, they ruled 5-4 in 2015 that even a controversial type of lethal injection can continue to be used in executions.
That case produced the dissent that led to Monday's order. Justice Stephen Breyer, backed by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, said then that the nation&…

Convicted Singaporean drug trafficker Hishamrudin Mohd was hanged last Friday in the Changi Prison Complex after failing on the preceding day - in a final court bid - to reopen his case.
Hishamrudin, 56, had been convicted of trafficking in 34.94g of diamorphine and sentenced to death by the High Court on Feb 2, 2016.
A Central Narcotics Bureau (CNB) spokesman said last Saturday that Hishamrudin was arrested in an operation on Oct 7, 2010, during which 59 packets containing 604.05g of powdery and granular substances were recovered from his car.
The substances were analysed and found to contain 3.56g of diamorphine, or pure heroin.
He was taken to his home, where 193 packets containing 4,061.68g of powdery and granular substances found to contain 34.94g of pure heroin were recovered.
The CNB spokesman noted that the Misuse of Drugs Act provides for the death penalty if the amount of diamorphine trafficked is more than 15g.
Hishamrudin was accorded due process under the law and his app…

Saudi Arabia has beheaded an Indonesian migrant worker for murder despite President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo’s repeated pleas that the man be granted clemency.
M. Zaini Misrin from Bangkalan, East Java, was executed on Sunday, according to Migrant Care, an Indonesian organization focusing on the welfare of Indonesian migrant workers.
Zaini, who worked as a driver, was sentenced to death on Nov. 17, 2008, after being found guilty of murdering his employer, Abdullah bin Umar Munammad Al Sindy. He was arrested on Jul. 13, 2004.
Migrant Care suspected that the 53-year-old Bangkalan resident had been forced to confess to the murder.
The group further claimed that Zaini did not receive legal assistance during his trial and was only accompanied by a translator believed to be complicit in forcing him to confess to the crime he claimed he did not commit.
The quality of mercy is not strained;
It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven
Upon the place beneath. It is twice blest;
It blesseth him that…

IRAN HUMAN RIGHTS (MARCH 2018): The 10th annual report on the death penalty in Iran by Iran Human Rights (IHR) shows that in 2017 at least 517 people were executed in the Islamic Republic of Iran.
With an average of more than one execution every day and more than one execution per 167.000 inhabitants in 2017, Iran remained the country with the highest number of executions per capita.
In 2017, the Iranian authorities executed 31 people in public spaces. These executions were conducted by hanging and scheduled executions were often announced in advance in order to attract public attention.
In 2008, a judicial moratorium on public executions was adopted by the Iranian authorities. However, since then, and despite continuous international criticism, many public executions have been organized by the authorities.
Public executions have repeatedly been criticized by the UN. Both the UN Secretary-General and the Special Rapporteur on the human rights situation in Iran have expressed concern…

On Tuesday, Missouri may administer a lethal injection to a convict with a condition called cavernous hemangioma. Lawyers for Russell Bucklew argue that the many tumors in his body could burst mid-execution and cause him to choke on his own blood. Which would be gruesome, and potentially unconstitutional. But then, so is our whole system of capital punishment.
It's long past time to acknowledge that there are many reasons the state should stop executing prisoners. Even for the most egregious crimes, and with no exceptions.
The most compelling reason is that on the other side of the ledger, there's a big blank space, and no valid rationale for keeping the government in this business.
As everyone knows, the criminal justice system sometimes gets it wrong, and innocent people are executed for crimes they did not commit. No one is for that, and yet it keeps happening.
These cases are a lot less unusual than we'd like to think. Studies have suggested that as many as 1 of every…

TOKYO - More than two decades after Japan's Aum Shinrikyo cult plunged Tokyo into terror by releasing a nerve agent on rush-hour subway trains, its spinoffs continue to attract new followers.
Cult head Shoko Asahara is on death row, along with 12 of his disciples, for crimes including the subway attack, which killed 13 people and injured thousands.
He was arrested in 1995 in the wake of the sarin attack, but the Aum cult survived the crackdown, renaming itself Aleph and drawing new recruits into its fold.
Aleph officially renounced ties to Asahara in 2000, but the doomsday guru retains significant influence, according to Japan's Public Security Intelligence Agency.
"It (Aleph) is a group that firmly instructs its followers to see Asahara as the supreme being," an agency investigator told AFP, speaking on condition of anonymity.
"If someone says 'guru Asahara wants to bring down Japan', there would be followers who would act. The group poses such a poten…

KUALA LUMPUR, March 17 — Lawyers voted to pass a resolution calling for the death penalty to be abolished including for drug trafficking offences.
The Malaysian Bar also passed a resolution during its 72nd annual general assembly calling for the immediate implementation of the Dangerous Drugs Act amendment that gives judges discretionary power to mete out sentences other than the death penalty.
“The Malaysian Bar opposes the death penalty because it takes the view that life is sacred, and every person has an inherent right to life,” read the resolution.
“The right to life is a fundamental right that is absolute, inalienable and universal, and must be held inviolate, irrespective of the crime committed by the accused person,” it added.
Putrajaya is currently considering removing the death penalty, including for drug offences.
But in its resolution, the Malaysian Bar said it was disappointed by the delay in the implementation to the DDA amendments.
It noted that the delay has caused th…

Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman: "There is no such thing as individual terrorism, this terrorism is supported by Mahmoud Abbas and the Palestinian Authority."
In response to a Friday ramming attack resulting in the deaths of two IDF soldiers, Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman said he would seek the death penalty for the suspect involved in the attack.
Liberman said the state "will act to ensure that the terrorist will receive the death penalty, demolish his house and punish all those who collaborated with him. There is no such thing as individual terrorism, this terrorism is supported by Mahmoud Abbas and the Palestinian Authority which provides money to the families of terrorists."
In a joint operation between the IDF and Shin Bet on Friday night, Israeli security forces arrested the brother of the suspected attacker, Atzahm Kabhha in Barta'a.
On Friday afternoon, a 26 year-old Palestinian by the name of Allah Kabhha reportedly rammed his vehicle into a gr…

IRAN HUMAN RIGHTS (MARCH 2018): The 10th annual report on the death penalty in Iran by Iran Human Rights (IHR) shows that in 2017 at least 517 people were executed in the Islamic Republic of Iran.
With an average of more than one execution every day and more than one execution per 167.000 inhabitants in 2017, Iran remained the country with the highest number of executions per capita.
At least two of the defendants who were executed for murder in 2017 were sentenced to death without any evidence against them but solely based on an oath given by the plaintiff's family members.
In one of the cases, the defendant insisted that he was innocent and that he could prove that he was in another city at the time of the offence. However, 50 members of the plaintiff’s family gave an oath that the defendant was guilty. He was sentenced to death and executed in Mashhad on May 23, 2017. Qassameh is a way to prove a crime (murder or injury) in the Islamic jurisprudence (fiqh) which is practiced …

Iran Human Rights (March 15, 2018): Two prisoners were hanged in public on the charge of armed robbery today.
According to IRIB, on the morning of Thursday, March 15, two prisoners were hanged in public in Dogonbadan (the capital of Gachsaran County, Kohgiluyeh and Boyer-Ahmad Province).
The two prisoners were brothers, and they were sentenced to death on the charge of armed robbery from a jewellery store and murdering two of the shopkeepers.
The robbery took place in September 2017, and the prisoners were arrested on December 6.
Their execution was carried out in less than 100 days. Issuing death sentence in such a short time may result in the defendants’ right to a fair trial being denied.
The Chief Justice of Gachsaran County, Reza Mishan, said, “On February 4, 2018, the death sentence for the thieves was issued by the Revolutionary Court in Gachsaran, and it was approved by the Supreme Court on March 11.”
“The sole purpose of public execution is creating fear among people,” …

DPN opposes the death penalty in all cases, unconditionally, regardless of the method chosen to kill the condemned prisoner. The death penalty is inherently cruel and degrading, an archaic punishment that is incompatible with human dignity. To end the death penalty is to abandon a destructive diversionary and divisive public policy that is not consistent with widely held values. The death penalty not only runs the risk of irrevocable error, it is also costly to the public purse as well as in social and psychological terms.The death penalty has not been proved to have a special deterrent effect. It tends to be applied in a discriminatory way on grounds of race and class. It denies the possibility of reconciliation and rehabilitation. It prolongs the suffering of the murder victim's family and extends that suffering to the loved ones of the condemned prisoner. It diverts resources that could be better used to work against violent crime and assist those affected by it. Death Penalty News is a privately owned, non-profit organization. It is based in Paris, France.Your donations to Death Penalty News DO make a difference.